Dear Reader,
Can you smell it yet? Have you noticed the list to starboard? The drop in your stomach? The angle which satire newspapers and popular jokes are now taking? That’s right, it’s all changing out there. Governments are losing control of the pandemic narrative. And even the mainstream media is waking up.
Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet put it best, according to Google translate, with the headline ‘We failed’:
‘For almost two years, we — the press and the population — have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities’ daily corona tally.
‘The constant mental alertness has worn out tremendously on all of us. That is why we — the press — must also take stock of our own efforts. And we have failed.
‘[…]
‘We have not been vigilant enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalized with corona and not because of corona. Because it makes a difference. A big difference.
‘Of course, it is first and foremost the authorities who are responsible for informing the population correctly, accurately and honestly. The numbers for how many are sick and died of corona should, for obvious reasons, have been published long ago, so we got the clearest picture of the monster under the bed.
‘In all, the messages of the authorities and politicians to the people in this historic crisis leave much to be desired. And therefore, they lie as they have ridden when parts of the population lose confidence in them.
‘Another example: The vaccines are consistently referred to as our “superweapon”. And our hospitals are called “superhospitals”. Nevertheless, these super-hospitals are apparently maximally pressured, even though almost the entire population is armed with a super-weapon. Even children have been vaccinated on a huge scale, which has not been done in our neighboring countries.
‘In other words, there is something here that does not deserve the term “super”. Whether it’s the vaccines, the hospitals, or a mixture of it all, is every man’s bid. But at least the authorities’ communication to the population in no way deserves the term “super”. On the contrary.’
Indeed. The media became a propaganda mouthpiece. But they don’t seem to be anymore.
While the Danes were apologising, the UK’s Telegraph headlined ‘Omicron has humiliated Britain’s dismal lockdown establishment’, with the subhead:
‘But they retain a firm grip on the national debate, making it impossible for the UK to live with Covid.’
Fear porn-promoting CNN, which lost 90% of its audience, saw its guest experts and headliners make a series of about-faces on lockdowns, masks, vaccines, case numbers, deaths, and a number of other metrics in the past few months.
The scandals over politicians and civil servants not abiding by their own COVID rules continue to mount, potentially toppling the UK government soon.
The media is not just reporting that leading US government scientists deliberately decided to quash scientific evidence that COVID-19 came from a lab in Wuhan, it’s also asking, ‘Why DID the science establishment try so hard to silence those who feared Covid had leaked from China lab?’.
Heck, the mainstream media is even answering their own question! A headline from the UK’s Telegraph: ‘Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab — but feared debate could hurt “international harmony”’.
The scientists didn’t just avoid mentioning it, though. They denied it was plausible when asked, and this led to censorship of those who argued that COVID-19 came from the lab. Some might say they even influenced an election…
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Even better than asking questions — and answering them — the mainstream media went on to report on the cover up too:
‘The University of Edinburgh recently turned down an Freedom of Information request from The Telegraph asking to see Prof Rambaut’s replies, claiming “disclosure would be likely to endanger the physical or mental health and safety of individuals”.’
Poor fellows. But it probably would endanger them…depending on what is found.
In Australia, there were even some new mainstream media stories about the age-old but supposedly ‘new Wuhan bombshell’ that COVID may have spread through the military games. Who knew? Actually, a lot of so-called conspiracy theorists alleged it…
In the UK, some of the newspapers are picking up on the fraying threads when it comes to pandemic data: ‘“Dodgy data” used in push for tighter Covid restrictions’, reported The Telegraph, adding:
‘Health chief accused of disseminating misleading statistics on hospitalisations that overstated the risk from omicron.’
After an admission of guilt, the Daily Mail’s headline summed up the response: ‘Scientists’ 5-day blunder sparks uproar: PM tells advisers to look again at cutting isolation after top body admits publishing misleading advice comparing UK rules to US’.
Misleading advice? Hmmm…at least they admitted it this time.
Back home, state premiers are abandoning border controls, testing, quarantining, and more and more of the measures they’ve been touting for years now. But only after their policies were overwhelmed.
In October, the Queensland government’s modellers got busy and produced some estimates of what would happen when the state did reopen. ABC news helpfully summed up the ‘Key Points’ for us:
‘The QIMR data informed the Queensland government’s roadmap to fully reopen the state’s borders.
‘Queensland’s CHO is confident the state’s health system can manage the predicted maximum of 1,200 COVID-19 cases a day.’
Well, Queensland opened up at last. And on the day I write this, the cases are about 20 times the maximum level, with a recent figure above 29,000…
But the Brisbane Times reports:
‘The real number of people fighting COVID-19 infections in Queensland is likely to be at least double the reported figure of more than 100,000, experts say.’
Yes, the experts are still being asked.
Now, you might’ve noticed the date. October is a long time ago, right? And Omicron is less severe but more transmissive.
Well, let’s take a look at hospitalisations for this ‘less-severe’ virus, then. Sure enough, hospitalisations have breached the previous record for Australia already.
Ahh, but what about deaths? The vaccines stop those, right?
Nope. New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, hit record deaths, despite getting a decent hit of the pandemic in the past. South Australia has too.
So we’ve got record cases, hospitalisations, and deaths, even in places that were hit by COVID waves in the past, despite the magical number of vaccinations being reached and despite a less-severe variant?
If you were going to judge the attempt to use vaccines to open up, what marks would you give?
One reason state governments have abandoned testing is the shortage of tests, which became as much of a problem as the pandemic.
The surge in demand for tests was, of course, completely unforeseeable. On a primetime news show called The Project, which gets helped along by comedians, the testing debacle was likened to The Hunger Games.
Things are so bad it’s not quite clear whether The Shovel newspaper was being satirical with this one:
‘A Sydney man has contracted and is now clear of COVID-19 after spending 14 days queuing at a testing facility.
‘Mark Herbert, 32, says he first started to show symptoms a fortnight ago, soon after he took up his place in the queue. “Literally only a day or two in I could feel the sore throat coming on,” he explained.
‘“So I thought, ‘I’d better get tested’, and then I remembered I was in the queue for a test already, from back when I got a runny nose earlier in December”.’
Mark supposedly goes on to recover and will likely test negative, whenever he gets the result back. But on order to comply with the regulations, ‘He has now rejoined the queue to get his day 6 test, which he missed due to being in the queue.’
Australia isn’t the only place suffering from a COVID test shortage. Two years into the pandemic and UK health secretary Sajid Javid is complaining there is ‘no quick fix’ to the dearth of tests.
No quick fix…after two years…how long does the UK government need!?
There is one good quick fix though. Dropping the need for testing. The US Centers for Disease Control has done away with PCR tests at the end of isolation periods after admitting they can remain positive 12 weeks after infection!
The interesting bit being that, according to a New York University infectious diseases specialist, ‘Frankly, the FDA has had two years to do these assessments…they’ve had two years and have been dragging their feet for two years.’
Alternatively, you can just change the definition of who needs to isolate at all, as News.com.au reported:
‘Prime Minister Scott Morrison says states and territories have agreed to narrow the definition of a close contact to people living with confirmed Covid-19 cases, in a major change that will reduce the number of people having to isolate.’
Even better, let those who still have COVID work in hospitals, as California has done.
Unashamed by their failures, and undaunted by their friends in the media suddenly questioning their claims, politicians are now focusing their ire on the unvaccinated.
But they forgot to fire the unvaccinated before UK health secretary Sajid Javid asked a random group of healthcare staff whether they thought the mandate was a good idea. He got quite a response from one doc, which went viral. The doctor also claims that the worm is turning within the NHS.
In fact, governments have put themselves offside with ever more of the vaccinated over forcing vaccine mandates on those who do not want them. It’s important to remember that Austria, which led the vaccine mandates, went from banning face coverings in 2017 to making them mandatory, which pretty much sums things up for me…
Protest marches are increasingly popping up on the news too. They were always happening, but they were not mentioned in polite society. Unless, of course, they were about racial justice instead of the pandemic, in which case, they could go ahead legally and receive lots of media attention back in 2020.
The civil servants have also realised that people are not obeying any longer. Politico reports that disobedience has become a major factor in pandemic policy making:
‘On Wednesday, Walensky acknowledged that the CDC’s decision to alter the recommended isolation period “really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate”.
‘“We have seen relatively low rates of isolation for all of this pandemic. Some science has demonstrated less than a third of people are isolating when they need to,” Walensky told CNN.
‘“And so we really want to make sure that we had guidance in this moment — where we were going to have a lot of disease — that could be adhered to, that people were willing to adhere to and that spoke specifically to when people were maximally infectious.”’
Despite record cases, deaths, and hospitalisations, lockdowns are not on the table in many nations. But in some places, where the same science is being followed, lockdowns are back!
Yet, if the lockdowns, masks, vaccines, or any other policy actually worked, we’d have flattened the curve in 2020, stopped transmission in 2021, escaped lockdowns, or prevented excess deaths. But instead, the world is seeing record cases, plenty of excess deaths, the occasional lockdown, and more of the same all round.
What went wrong? Well, there’s this, from News.com.au:
‘Pfizer’s chief executive has revealed that two doses of the current Covid-19 vaccine offer “very limited protection, if any” against Omicron.’
Well done, they’ve figured it out.
What’s the solution, apart from vaccine mandates?
A new vaccine!
CNBC has it for you: ‘Pfizer CEO says omicron vaccine will be ready in March’.
After all, the UK was just advised against a fourth booster of the existing vaccines, so we must sell them something new!
In fact, the German news reports that Pfizer is already producing an Omicron-specific vaccine. What a coincidence their CEO has just realised the old vaccine doesn’t work!
Anyway, the new one will arrive just in time for the Omicron wave to have…passed us by? But in time to be paid for, no doubt.
The next thing and we’ll all be told that we need to buy more expensive masks, now that we have all bought the other ones.
Sure enough, News.com.au has the story:
‘The United States’ top health agency has issued advice that cloth masks are ineffective against the Omicron variant, saying better masks are needed to keep people safe.’
What a time to figure this out!
I wonder if any politically-connected people have set up companies to produce said masks, while their wives make ‘referrals’ to the government bodies that decide who gets the government contracts. But you’d hope they wouldn’t be that stupid again this time around.
But maybe we’re being unfair. The world’s politicians and modellers are dealing with a new variant, after all. And it’s not like Queensland politicians knew that a new variant with unknown characteristics had begun circulating when they decided to open up the state to travel…did they…?
But at least Omicron is mild as they’ve been telling us.
Oh…wait, ‘World Health Organisation declares Omicron variant is not “mild”’, reports News.com.au.
And the WHO now expects more than half of Europe to be infected within weeks.
What a time to realise it isn’t ‘mild’ after all! Perhaps they only told us it was to protect their mental health…
Look, I didn’t expect people to wake up so fast to the realisation that a government-run society, let alone economy, leads to debacles like this. But it was still too long for my liking. And I thought the people would wake up before the media did.
Until next time,
 |
Nickolai Hubble,
Editor, The Daily Reckoning Australia Weekend
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